Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Identity lite

Liberals believe that they are creating a pluralistic society. If there is a multiplicity of social forms, then individuals can autonomously choose from these to self-determine their own lives.

But there's a catch. In practice, it's difficult to have significant and conflicting forms of social life and identity sharing the same space. And so liberals have to find ways to overcome this problem.

One way is to "privatise" serious forms of belief and identity. For instance, religion can be held to be a personal matter only, and not something that is to inform public life. But this then begins the process of making such belief matter less, of confining it to a more limited sphere and role.

The process is ongoing. For instance, a French High Commissioner declared recently that,

True integration will be when Catholics name their child Mohammed.

So it's not thought good enough for Catholics to accept that the public square will be secular. Now the test of a successful pluralism is that they identify with another religion closely enough to name their children after its prophet.

A serious religious identity has to weaken further, so that it is "fluid" and can mix with other religions.

See the problem here? Pluralism comes at the cost of a trivialisation of identity. Instead of the chance to participate fully in a significant tradition of your own, you get the "identity lite" option of participating at a level that doesn't draw too much of a line between different traditions.

There's a similar problem when it comes to an ethnic identity. There are plenty of liberal politicians who allow themselves to have an ethnic identity. But this is assumed to be a personal matter, not relevant to public policy.

If I remember correctly, Sir Robert Menzies, the long-serving Liberal Party PM, declared himself to be "British to the bootstraps". But he regarded this as merely a personal sentiment.

It's perfectly possible for an Anglo-Celtic Australian who sort of has a lot of reverence to the traditional institutions of the country, and the traditional characteristics of Australia, and to want to hang on to those, to be completely tolerant and colour-blind and so on.

This is the more "conservative" interpretation of pluralism and non-discrimination. It's hopelessly ideological. It requires limiting your identity to the personal realm, so that you can't make the defence of the mainstream tradition a part of public policy. And it requires a commitment to creating ethnic "pluralism" (mass immigration) and dampening or eroding the existing mainstream identity to fit in with such pluralism.

So this "conservative" approach is contradictory: you can't "hang onto" an existing identity and at the same time be ideologically committed to liberal pluralism.

And what are the more radical options? Consider what the leading politicians of liberal Sweden have to say on the matter:

Our prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said the following soon after he was elected in 2006:

“The core Swedish is only barbarism. The rest of the development has come from outside.”

Mona Sahlin, now the party leader of the Social Democrats, which is the largest party in Sweden with about 35% of the votes, said in 2002:

“I think that what makes so many Swedes envious of immigrant groups is, you have a culture, an identity, a history, something that binds you. And what do we have? Mid-summers’ eve and such ridiculous things.”

The party leader of the Center Party, who is in the current government coalition, said the following:

“It is really not the Swedes that built Sweden. It was people that came from abroad.”

This is an ideological attack on the mainstream Swedish identity. It's obviously untrue that others and not the Swedes developed Sweden. It is obviously a lie that the Swedish have no culture of their own. So why say such things?

One reason is that it weakens Swedish identity to the point of allowing pluralism. If the Swedes have no culture and did not develop their own society, then there is no common achievement that they might take pride in and sustain a positive sense of identity with.

So note what pluralism has led to in Sweden. Leading politicians there openly adopt a "we are nothing" attitude. It is not even an "identity lite" but a non-identity. The mainstream identity has been trivialised out of existence.

This is what an ideological commitment to pluralism leads toward. Without it, the mainstream might not be so accepting of being reduced to the status of one amongst many or the loss of their long-term viability, and there might be issues of successfully integrating the newly arrived "other".

I'm not suggesting that pluralism is wrong in all instances. But I think it's clear that the liberal approach to pluralism is misconceived. The end result is not to give individuals a multiplicity of significant beliefs and identities to fashion a life from, but to increasingly trivialise and undermine such aspects of life.

And what tends to replace them is a single, uniform commitment to liberalism itself. The pluralistic society becomes the politically correct one.

50 comments:

Leftists have done such damage to societies around the world. They say that diversity makes us stronger and that we should celebrate our differences. Yet look at the US, one of the most diverse societies in the world. When they were hit with cyclone Katrina the whole place fell apart. There was no common thread to hold them together in adversity. Then look at the similar disasters in homogeneous societies. Say, the disaster in Kyoto some time ago. Was there murder, looting etc? Not to my recollection. Multiculturalism has become a type of faith for people who are looking for something to fill a void in their lives. They have lost faith in past norms and are now trying to create something new.I have to wonder though, if the British were to suffer another onslaught like in 1940, would they really pull togther again or would they fall apart like the US?

"And it requires a commitment to creating ethnic "pluralism" (mass immigration) and dampening or eroding the existing mainstream identity to fit in with such pluralism."

Howard is very fond of saying "this is what the Australian public will agree with". This is a Anglo-celtic population not a multi-ethnic world population.

The Liberals are motivated by a deisre for a degree of tolerance and pop to feed economic growth. Not (the majority of them) to the deliberate overturning of an Anglo population. Because of this the movement against immigration is strongest in the Liberal party.

The biggest problem as you identified is that you can't raise an argument against immigration simply on the basis of a desire to maintain the traditional population mix. You have to mount it in terms of, "social cohesion", the "environment", "sustainability" etc.

Here's one of the reason's why I think this is. When Dick Smith put out the big campaign of buy Australian not that long ago I was stoked. I thought at last a major buisness was pushing the Australian angle hard. So I bought a Dick Smith product straight away. Then had trouble making it work because it was crap. Apparnetly what I bought wasn't even made in Australia but Malaysia. Wrapping yourself in the Australian flag isn't a sufficient substitute for quality. We want stuff that works we want "progress".

There is a belief that simple patriotism is not of the future and will not lead to progress. People may not want to live in the multi ethnic wonder land but nor do they want to feel like a luddite.

I don't even know how to express the apostasy of that statement. It is a two-step betrayal. First, the Catholic has to give up naming his child after saints and Biblical characters. Second, he has to start naming the child after another religion's leaders. Furthermore, Islam recognizes the Christ, so why wouldn't integration be signified by Muslims naming their children Jesus?

Thus, the real goal of "multiculturalism" and "diversity", is simply to shame and destroy the culture of the majority, and to flood societies with unassimilating foreigners, so the State can be the intermediary between competing groups.

The idea is that Catholicism is an "ethnic marker" rather than a religion. Otherwise the idea of having a Catholic name their child Mohammed makes no sense at all.

The very interesting thing is that Muslims have no theological basis for the separation of church and state. Once they eventually take the reigns of power from non-Muslim Europeans, which is an eventuality given how little interest non-Muslims there have in reproduction, we'll see how liberal and open minded they are.

Of course, Catholicism is merely an ethnic marker for most French people today, no? Is there any Western nation truly more secularized than France today? (Though throughout the West, apart from some Eastern Europeans, the trend is the same.)

(BTW, my link in my last comment to a humour jpeg doesn't work properly as the site blocks it unless you paste it directly into your browser. So, fine, to the page itself hosting it, here.)

Why are continential Europeans doing this to themselves? Its as if the Swedes and French looked at the race riots of the American 1960s and said "I'd like an extra helping of that please!"

America and Australia have histories that necessetate some multi-ethnic accomodations. But Sweden and France could have easily avoided this nonsense.

Because the culture that the elites constantly shove in everyone's face through the educational system, media, and legal system is self-loathing. This has its basis in Europe as a result of the two wars of the 20th Century -- the "takeaway" from that experience by much of the Western European elite was that "Western culture", as an entity, was bankrupt, did not deserve any support, and was something to be rather ashamed of. It's this sense of self-loathing that has propelled the entire multi-culti enterprise in Europe. Note how it's tinged with the idea that not are cultures *equal* -- no. It's that the non-European cultures are superior, whereas Sweden isn't even considered to have something comparable at all. It's that kind of bone-deep self-loathing that plagues Europe's elites, and which is doing in Europe slowly but surely. A civilization which, in effect, loathes its own tradition is a civilization which cannot sustain itself.

We also have this in the US, of course, where our own elite largely loathes our own tradition, as well as the broader Western tradition, too. The main difference is that in the US, the elites have somewhat less control over the entirety of the situation than they do in Europe ... so far, at least.

"Howard is very fond of saying "this is what the Australian public will agree with". This is a Anglo-celtic population not a multi-ethnic world population."

Really? Didn't you say a few days ago that an "Australian" is an Anglo-Celt and an Aboriginal? Why do you think it's impossible that Mr. Howard also has the Aboriginals in mind when he says "Australian"?

And can you imagine him ever telling Australian citizens of East Asian descent that he doesn't really mean them when he says the "Australian public"? And African, Polynesian, Malay ancestry, etc.? I highly doubt it. So how seriously can he really believe something he won't say? More importantly, how long can you expect future Australians to believe things your current leaders won't even say?

Face it, mate, your identity is swirling down the crapper, and I wouldn't expect the likes of Mr. Howard to try fishing it out any time soon.

"Naturally, Muslims naming their children after Catholic saints would be a sign not of true integration but of true racism."

Very good point.

Bartholomew said,

"Really? Didn't you say a few days ago that an "Australian" is an Anglo-Celt and an Aboriginal? Why do you think it's impossible that Mr. Howard also has the Aboriginals in mind when he says "Australian"?"

Give me a break Bartholomew, when I say Australian I don't really, really mean Aboriginal. But if they can't be part of Ausralia where can they be part of?

I agree that Howard and his guys will have to do a better (much better? I throw the question mark in because its now Liberal policy to reduce immigration) job.

Been reading 'Case for Father custody' by Daniel Amneus and he has an interesting explanation on the observations of the early history of man by Giambatista Vico.

Essentially pre history (or the Hypnocratic epoch as termed by Gerald Heard) was a matriarchal epoch (pluralism and communitarianism) that was destroyed by the Heroic epoch (patriarchy, individualism and advanced civilization).

Relating to the post, how much does liberalism look like matriarchy? Considering identity is the core of patriarchy, how much is the attack on one's own culture really an attack on patriarchy?.

I think you're absolutely right about multiculturalism being an attack on patriarchy. Feminists and other leftists see the history of Europe as the history of oppression of women and minorities. They blame white men for this and want to erase the society which gave rise to it. The best way they can establish and maintain their priviliges in this 'new' society is to erase the old with politically correct 'minorities'. We'll all be much happier then.

"It requires limiting your identity to the personal realm, so that you can't make the defence of the mainstream tradition a part of public policy."

I've seen a similar idea before at VFR, where Lawrence Auster argues that the Founders' cardinal error in creating the Constitution was to give us an essentially secular charter-- it leaves out any direct means of preserving the tradition of the polity. It provides no means of constitutional resistance to liberalism or buttressing of our Christian heritage.

I submit that there is no way to utilize policy to conserve vital aspects of any free society, of a living culture. These things are left to us- individuals and groups centered on ethny, religion, geography, etc.-- to defend or adjust (or abandon) as necessary. That this may sound a strange distinction to some shows that governments have been permitted to accrue more power than is healthy.

Contemporary policies are more ephemeral and serve mainly to compliment the expressed interests of the people. Those groups and individuals that are more effective in expressing their interests will have more affect on policy, but more importantly on society as a whole.

Do not forget that transnationalism, one-worldism, whatever you wish to call it has been an integral part of International Socialism since the days of Karl Marx. Indeed, they organized themselves into the "Socialist International", their anthem was and is the "Internationale". The desire to unify all humans under one secular authority is key to the Socialists idea of Heaven.

Various flavors of Socialist have been engaged in the Long March through the institutions suggested by the Italian Communist Gramsci for generations. Gramsci wrote in the 1930's, remember, and his ideological descendants were in the streets in 1968. Subsequently some of them became active in public education (Bill Ayers being only one) and it is quite easy to trace many bad ideas in public education in the United States to the mid 1970's.

Now we have people in their 40's who were "educated" by the Bill Ayers mentality in the late 70's and 80's. They are unhappy, but do not know why. They like their country, but feel obliged to constantly pick it apart. They got married, but then got divorced and maybe married and divorced again. They've been sold a bill of goods.

Oh, and many of them consider themselves "citizens of the world", and regard national pride as something atavistic, dirty, and even shameful.

Finally, watch what the left does with its diversity, rather than what they say. "Diversity" never includes some young man who grew up in a rural area, or his sister. "Diversity" never includes the student captain of the High School Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) no matter what race. "Diversity" has no place for poor white people from coal mining towns. "Diversity" is all about politics: leftists of all colors, sexual orientations, etc. are welcome, but churchgoing black people, or East Asians at all never count at least in the US.

So "diversity" is really an ideological wedge intended to force anyone who is culturally traditional to the margins, by shoving "citizens of the world" and other approved types into the forefront.

Contemporary policies are more ephemeral and serve mainly to compliment the expressed interests of the people. Those groups and individuals that are more effective in expressing their interests will have more affect on policy, but more importantly on society as a whole.

I recently read a book by James Davison Hunter on this issue called "To Change The World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World". It basically said what you have done here, namely that political change follows cultural change. He added that cultural change happens when cultural elites decide to move the culture one way or another, because they have disproportionate power to impact the culture in lasting ways -- much more than individuals, families, or communities do, especially when the latter have been dramatically weakened.

His criticism, from the Christian perspective, of Christian "engagement" in the culture war has been that it has been largely limited to the political realm -- while the bastions of the cultural elites have been largely abandoned by believing Christians in favor of their own parallel structures. As a result, the culture continues to spin ever faster in an ever more un-Christian direction, despite the large presence Christians have had in the political realm (in the US) in the last few decades. His case is fairly strong that it's about the culture, and not the political entity. The corollary, though, is that on the level of culture, in terms of the mass culture that is influenced heavily by the elites, as well as the intellectual culture (same), the culture war is finished, and has been roundly lost. In Hunter's view, the way to reverse that would be for Christians to re-engage the culture at all levels, rather than live in a hermeneutically sealed Christian subculture. But I have my doubts that this will actually happen, given the huge hurdles that exist.

"It's that the non-European cultures are superior, whereas Sweden isn't even considered to have something comparable at all. It's that kind of bone-deep self-loathing that plagues Europe's elites..."

A lot of this is ignorance about the sort of things that are related to culture. How people relate to other people and conform to social rules for example are also related to culture.

An important aspect of Swedish culture for example, is a low level of corruption, something which is not shared by most cultures. Sweden's liberal elites of course assume that in all the really important areas, all cultures and people are interchangeable.

Jesse_7Its funny though because I've heard several Sweedes express strong dislike for immigration. I'm not sure what their current immigration numbers are like.

So? A clear majority of US citizens want their southern border controlled tightly, it doesn't make a whit of difference; big business wants the cheap and docile labor that illegal immigration provides, and the Democratic party wants the guaranteed votes the illegal aliens will provide. So a kind of theater exists, where the Border Patrol struggles to control the first 40 miles or so, and beyond that there are abundant "sanctuary" cities.

It could well be the majority of Swedes want to strictly limit immigration, certainly a significant number in Malmo feel that way by now I wager...but so long as the self-perpetuating elites do not want that, nothing will change.

What the average person wants, and what the average "representative" government is willing to do, are often two very different things.

"So? A clear majority of US citizens want their southern border controlled tightly, it doesn't make a whit of difference; big business wants the cheap and docile labor that illegal immigration provides, and the Democratic party wants the guaranteed votes the illegal aliens will provide."

And people want cheap maids, and the public don't seem to prioritise it as an issue as highly as they should. You can say the public don't want it, but how badly? Really bad or "eh, so so".

Sweeden's left parties don't need to replace the population because they vote left anyway. I've not heard of the cheap labour angle used in relation to Sweeden before and as for the ideological satisfaction of high immigration it all comes down to how many are actually coming in. Does Sweeden actually push the multicultural angle for themselves? Do they actually like the idea of no more blonde Sweedes?

In the U.S., the view on the immigration issue is driven, in part, by politics (law and order right wanting to enforce the law, bleeding heart left wanting to be empathetic) and in part by pragmatism (big business heavily supports immigration because it lowers wage costs, and people also like their cheap maids and nannies and gardeners and so on). If you live in a border state like Arizona, of course the burden on the state services is substantial -- but if you live in Virginia and have a latina maid, it isn't quite the same deal. And if you're McDonald's you want immigrants as well, because they staff most of the restaurants now -- it's baked into the business model at that wage level. The same for construction industry, agriculture and so on. This is why the law and order types on immigration in the US will never really get their way -- the other, higher paying, constituency of the republican party -- big business -- wants more, not less, immigration, as well as amnesty for existing immigrants (many of whom are their labor base).

In Sweden, the issue is more one of national self-loathing than anything else. Most European societies suffer from this, albeit to differing degrees. The elites in the US suffer from it as well, at least among the left, but more broadly the US is still a fairly patriotic place. European countries are less so, in many cases due to the experiences of the 20th century. It varies wildly by country, of course. But the comments in the article linked above about how Swedes don't have a culture worth being proud of when compared with immigrant culture -- that pretty much says it all, right there.

Evidently if you put your a member of Young Farmers of America or 4-H or ROTC on your college application you are virtually guaranteed to be denied despite your SAT scores.

VDARE blog....

http://blog.vdare.com/archives/2010/07/15/how-to-get-into-college/

Ok moving on to Jesse's comment...

"And people want cheap maids, and the public don't seem to prioritise it as an issue as highly as they should. You can say the public don't want it, but how badly? Really bad or "eh, so so"."

You know...I make no defense of white people hiring cheap maids...but even in my upper-class neighbhorhood in California there was only 1 family that had a nanny and they were pussies.

The truth is that the majority depends on the elites. That's why white people had Kings and Queens. The King was the Genetic Embodiment of the People...the purest of the pure genetically....even compared to the Christian God. There's a reason for this....the King isn't going to get rid of all the people he's genetically related to.

Let's face it most white people have IQ's between 100-110 and just don't have the brain power to counteract stuff. And then the rest of the smart people are just too busy working jobs and long hours. When you add kids to the mix....it's hard!

The 1924 Immigration Act was put in place by Anglo Saxon elites motivated by scientific racism/eugenics/race purity arguments. Frankly, they were smart people and I completely agree with everything they said.

But then something happened....A perfect storm....We can go into the Franz Boas, Jewish conspiracies, Communism, WW2 and Hitler, people getting richer and dumber, teenage 60's rebellion, lack of Christianity, EU and one world government....etc etc etc

But no matter how and why it happened....The Elites did turn on us by the 1960s.

We don't have leaders on our side anymore. And the few who are get shit on so bad that they have to leave (like Tancredo.) The media is against us etc etc.

Without courageous elites the average person cannot defend themselves.

So this whole "well you guys don't have the willpower" argument is bullshit and if you got so much willpower/money/prestige/friends in high places/respect in you then please Jesse take over the world and fix it.

The thing is...the people who are really intelligent, courageous, fighters who don't back down-- like Steve Sailer, Peter Brimelow, some economics dudes that I listen to etc etc.....They get shut down by the media. Without an outlet to speak at how do you get your ideas across?? How do you run for office when the media shuts you off? Knock door to door in a city of 10 million people?

That is why these blogs and internet sites are so important....a parallel media that cannot be silenced. For the intellectually curious (who are few and far between)...blogs like this one and vdare can be found and from there the information will be disseminated.

Alexander Solzhenistyn has a lot to say on the lack of courage in Western Civilization.

Pick a side and stick with it. There are no grey areas...morality is black and white. If you find yourself saying "Oh well there are exceptions" stop right there because your wrong and weak.

Is keeping personal power at the expense of your entire genetic line of people that important?

To put it simply: yes.

This is the downside to the current Western system of individual autonomy. People are loyal only to themselves and to their own interests. There is no sense of responsibility to community, country, or even family these days.Contrast this to say, East Asian countries like South Korea where there is a very strong sense of community and family duty and one's identity consists mostly of "Korean-ness," as opposed to individual character.

Individuality is viewed as a negative thing in many of these Asian cultures. Western culture, however, has traditionally valued individuality and encourages people to construct their own unique identities rather than see themselves as one bit of a bigger whole.

This only works when there is a strong family system in place. The man is responsible for his family-- thus giving him individual autonomy-- and his interests will lie in what his best for his family, not what is best for him. The best part about this is "what is best for the family" will naturally involve a sense of community and loyalty, and an attitude which is predisposed to looking out for others.

The collapse of the family, as we are seeing now, will lead to the collapse of the Western system.

Ok this is fair enough. Still plenty of things have been pushed as a result of pressure from below.

You also mentioned "Jewish conspiracies". Please say what they are.

Anonymous 3:30 said,

"This is the downside to the current Western system of individual autonomy"

I think that's right. We're not just individualistic though we're also focused on the short term. Today the priority is on immediacy rather than longer term action or views. So if you have such a short focus you won't fully appreciate the outcomes of what you're doing. This doesn’t mean that everyone is clueless but plenty of people who go along are.

Why is there a short focus? A common view is that there is no connection to history or to the future, so live for the now. Heard that before?

We're not just individualistic though we're also focused on the short term.

It's bad enough when ordinary people think like that, but when governments adopt the same attitude it's downright frightening.

Materialism and a consumer society gone wrong can be attributed as some of the main causes, but again I think family is also a factor. An individual's well-being only lasts a single lifetime, but the survival of a family goes on for generations. There used to be an attitude of "think of your children and your children's children," but now it's increasingly rare for couples to have children at all-- or even for couples to exist in the first place. The number of people my age I know who are simply not interested in relationships (people in their early 20s) is pretty disturbing.

In addition to my last comment, I think people also think that society functions like a machine. They just have to do their bit, the experts at various levels will do theirs, and everything will be allright. This creates quite a passive attitude. An oppossing attitude would be that society is a wheel that you have to put your shoulder to.

Oh I also want to clarify my Nothing Happens from Below thesis so that no one starts screeching that I'm "giving up" or "weak" or anything.....

The reason why it is important to realize that real change does not happen from below is that...

a) every movement needs intelligent, wealthy, independent leaders (Benjamin Franklin, George Washington)b) The importance of becoming Intelligent and Independently Wealthy (wealth derived from a source that cannot be confiscated from your enemy--Buffett is such a fun evil guy in that he always advocates laws on the stock market that sound really good for the average person but his real motivation is to elimintate the competition to his own wealth from small time millionaires who are climbing the ladder)

So yeah...thats why it's important....If you think that real change comes from the Bottom Up you will never play the game correctly, and thus lose.

The quote is totally Communist Ideology (Communism is a parasitic idea that just won't go away!) BUT it only works for white people!!! hehehe White People are the people of Ideas and Creativity and Principles....only white people get infected by them heheheh

You're shooting yourself in the foot here if by "allies" you mean "other white people." The majority of other white people do not give two squats about other white people, and many will only focus on the interests of minority groups in an attempt to suck up to those who will surely become our future leaders (yay). At the same time many if not most whites sabotage white interests and openly attack white culture (as seen from this article) because they know the minorities hate us and somehow think that this behaviour will endear themselves (the individual white person's interests coming at the expense of the white group as a whole) to them.

What is most laughable is that this self-loathing attitude actually brings more scorn from non-white cultures. How can we expect to be respected by other people if we don't respect ourselves?

The church (if it wasn't so stuffed up) could act as a "Elite" institution but as we know from the Catholic Church and most Christian/Evangelical churches they are more stuffed up then the people they are trying to help.

This is remarkable, I just saw Tony Burke, the Minister for Sustainable (new word) Population and Immigration. Arguing very hard against overcrowding in the major cities and that this should be a national priorirty. Of course he committed himself to no decrease in immigration numbers but argued that we should see growth in regional centres rather than the existing cities.

"People have been talking about this for years, and now the national politicians are just catching up".

This is a remarkable nerve for a party that was just pushing "Big Australia" 2 minutes ago.

For the first time I can recall "sustainable population" is on the forefront of the political agenda. I don't know about you guys but I'm on the media comment sites spreading the word for lower immigration.

I think the thing with immigration in Australia was that the public, generally, hated Labor's immigration policies. However, the Liberals on the other hand were too reluctant to grasp an alternative out of fear of being called racist, and also because they were too wedded to the neo liberal economic growth models as the solution for everything. You can see this neo-liberal approach frequently in The Australian newspaper.

The thing is now we have a truly remarkable situation. Labor has raised the immigration issue in an attempt to win an election, (and to counter the negative public reactions from Rudd's "Big Australia" advocacy). As Labor, the left wing party, has raised the issue it its now not racist to talk about. We heard from Gillard that, "Its not PC to have concerns about asylum seekers" read immigration. So the issue is on. This has caused the intelligentsia to absolutely spit out their lattes in consternation because immigration was the absolutely verboten topic of political discussion. Support for immigration was one of the signature requirements for moral progressivism. Now that the left wing champions have raised it as an issue, the squishy journos have absolutely nowhere to go. To disapprove of immigration cuts too loudly is to be shown to be hopelessly disconnected from the public. To support them is to backtrack on everything they've supported.

What's the fall back argument for increased immigration? The economy of course. So pseudo right leaning papers, like the Australian, are leading off with calls for maintaining large immigration numbers on economic grounds. It seems the Greens don't want it because it affects the environment (all those bad humans), and the average punter doesn't want it because it affects their "quality of life", read traffic congestion and housing prices, (precious little darlings).

So far there has only been talk from the leaders, hot talk at that, but no concrete proposals for cuts. (Although I believe the Liberals have gone the furthest and Labor still visibly shrinks and seems appalled at the prospect of approving of cuts). Nonetheless that this should be such a political issue would surely be seen to be remarkable if looked at only a short time ago.

So for people who aren't following Australian politics, if Labor isn't supporting immigration cuts, how are they raising immigration as an issue?

In two classic Labor ways. Firstly tokenism. This involves "sharing the public's concerns", "we understand the difficulties etc". Of course this is do nothing but WONDERFULLY satisfying. They’ve also changed the name of their population minister to, "Sustainable" population minister, Yay!

The second is by suggesting, not much more than floating at this stage, that immigrants should go to smaller regional cities rather than larger metropolitan cities. This would f course be supported by a massive new big government infrastructure plan, which isn't specific or costed. This is also classic Labor in that its all raised just before the election so its all vague, wish list like, and there's also no time for details or even concrete commitments. Just vote for us now ;), and we'll sort it all out latter, *insert big caring smile*. Awww they're so lovely and cute!

Regional cities, um ok. These are the same guys who can't run basic government services and basically destroy everything they touch.

This is an important article. It details how Rudd, who has done nothing but bend over backwards and do nice things for certain groups of people, got blackmailed and extorted by a group because he believes in the rule of law.

This is what needs to be discussed. It's important Mark. At least read it before taking Jesse's side point blank. It's Sydney Morning Herald so it cannot be racist.

Seriously, I want you to read it and say to me 'Anonymous what they did to Rudd was perfectly fine and cannot be considered blackmail or extortion and you are out of line.' I need to hear this so I can move off this blog.

The fact that Rudd was forced to 'schmooze' people who were extorting him because he felt that stealing passports (and committing a murder and trying to frame western law for the crime) was wrong is absolutely irreprehensible.

It's ok to delete my last comment Mark. Just read the article and please have a private discussion with yourself on whether or not I have a point that what happened to Rudd was a form of blackmail and extortion...and more importantly whether or not a moral people would conduct politics in such a manner.

Actually because Jesse has gotten me so upset by turning on me and showing his true face...I'm reading more about Australian Politics :) which is always a good thing!

It seems like the Greens are pretty smart...at least in one respect....Campaign Finance Reform. I think the Greens Political Donations Legislative Reforms are absolutely essential for the future of Australia.

I consider myself to be a traditional conservative, but I'm not about to turn my back on good ideas from the uber-leftwing (the uber-leftwing like the Greens tend to truthful people.)

"Contemporary policies are more ephemeral and serve mainly to compliment the expressed interests of the people. Contemporary policies are more ephemeral and serve mainly to compliment the expressed interests of the people. Those groups and individuals that are more effective in expressing their interests will have more affect on policy, but more importantly on society as a whole."

The middle class have become puppets of the elites, while the working class lack the focus or education to challenge them without middle class leadership.

The problem with mounting any kind of opposition though, is that society is now so fractured, it's getting very difficult for any one group to seriously challenge elite policy, and every group has their own agenda.